Their group made decent time through the village. They made sure to avoid any windows that still had candles or lanterns burning, and a couple of times they’d needed to divert course when they saw someone outside for one reason or another, but for the most part, the village seemed dead.

Before too long their destination was in sight. Shadow was enraptured, marveling at the… thing in front of her.

It was clearly a building of some sort, and it was built alongside the river that apparently ran through town. She’d known about the river but hadn’t had a chance to see it in the village earlier. The area around it seemed filled with trees, well, cut down trees that'd had all their branches stripped. So really, logs, she supposed. They seemed to be cut to manageable lengths (she assumed, it wasn't like she had any chance of moving one).

It seemed the humans must do some sort of work out here, as she saw some tools lying around (She spotted a couple axes and handsaws). She assumed they worked on the logs that were piled up everywhere.

But none of that was really what she was interested in. Her eyes were locked on the structure everything else surrounded. She wasn’t sure what the weird structure was, but she knew it was amazing. It was like a normal building, but it clearly was important given all the stuff surrounding it. It was also much longer than the average house. Most importantly, it had a wheel on it, like a cart (she'd learned about those), but the wheel was giant!

It was hanging off the side of the building on some big log-looking thing. It could easily be the same as one of the ones lying around. The wheel's edge was dipped into the river water. She was pretty sure the water was pushing it, making the whole giant wheel turn. She had no idea why someone would make something like this. It would still be awesome even if it was useless, but she was almost certain it wasn't. She had a good idea she’d be finding out the reason for its existence shortly.

Maggie was leading them right to the strange building.

Shadow started running laps around the kids in excitement as they approached, which had them giggling.

She didn’t care. It was so cool! She couldn’t keep still.

Before long they were at the door to the strange, wheeled building, and pushed it open, letting themselves inside.

“Welcome to the sawmill!” Maggie exclaimed proudly. She squinted into the darkness beyond.

“My Da works here. It cuts planks quicker’n any team. The owner gotta gods-ta-honest engineer ta make it all work!“

She squinted around some more.

“It’s a lot darker’n I thought it'd be," she said with some concern. "Shoulda got a lantern.”

The building was quite dark inside. Shadow could still see fine, but the kids would be blind in here. Thankfully, she had a pretty easy solution for that.

It was just a short nudge of her crystal to bring light back to the place.

The kids all looked over at her as it started glowing again.

"Oh... I forgot about that." Maggie said, sounding a little embarrassed.

Shadow barely noticed. There was so much going on in here! She saw a whole slew of new things. Her question list was blooming once again. Although… again… how could she even explain where she saw all this?

She was starting to realize this would be a common refrain. She started to let out a low hiss, before stopping when she noticed the kids look over.

Why me? I hate this. Maybe I’ll just tell Annie when I get back.

Annie would be angry and they’d probably have a big talk or argument or something, but Shadow wouldn’t have to lie like this. She’d also get to ask all her questions, rather than having to keep a secret list that she couldn’t ask without weird excuses she’d have to come up with.

Again! That’s for later! Have fun now!

Why was it so hard to stay here in the now? Her thoughts seemed to really want to jump ahead to the bad stuff that might happen later.

She shook them off.

There were all sorts of interesting things arrayed around her right now! In full golden color!

Besides, for now, she may have someone else here that could explain some of this stuff.

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She started to run around pointing at things and poking Maggie until she started to explain what they were. Maggie quickly got the hang of things and became increasingly enthusiastic in her explanations. She didn’t know everything, but she certainly knew more than Shadow.

They walked around the big room as Maggie told the group all about the sawmill. She talked about how the waterwheel moved the crankshafts and gears, and… other things. This eventually made the big saw that was at the end of an even bigger table move up and down quickly. Apparently, they could use it to cut almost perfect planks way faster than a two-man team using something called a whipsaw.

The big saw wasn’t moving right now, despite the fact that the waterwheel was spinning outside. Maggie pointed to one of the mechanisms that would start it moving if you set it right. Apparently, that was a very tricky job to do right without breaking anything, so they didn't try.

Maggie seemed to be very enthusiastic about explaining how it all worked (as best she could, at least.), which was great because Shadow was eager to learn. They were so into it, their initial reason for coming was forgotten, at least until they were reminded about it.

“So, all this saw stuff is great’n all, but weren’t we out here ‘cause we could be noisy? I wanna hear Shadow try talkin’!” Roy interjected as Maggie took a breath, interrupting her before she could start expounding upon the next piece of saw-related equipment.

Shadow shared a look with Maggie. Shadow would be happy continuing to learn all about the sawmill for the rest of the night. A look at Ara and Roy told her they were not as thrilled about that idea.

How can you not find this amazing?

She guessed some people were just weird.

It wouldn't do to leave out half the group, so they decided to move on to their original plan.

“Um, we should head down to the crawlspace. There’s a lotta sawdust n’ stuff. It should help keep things quiet.” Maggie suggested, leading them all over to what seemed to be a door that was on the floor rather than a wall.

Maggie lifted it up with some help from the other kids and they climbed down a short ladder, onto a pile of what smelled like wood and looked like rough dirt?

Wood bits leftover from the sawing? This must be sawdust.

Shadow stared around at the new space. There were big piles of the stuff everywhere, reaching the ceiling in many places.

She could definitely tell how the sounds were muffled down here. There was a lot less vertical space, but everyone was pretty short compared to an adult human, so they fit just fine. There were also quite a few extra parts laying around. Saw blades and mechanical parts and such. Shadow was about to start exploring before she remembered that they came down here for a reason.

All the kids were staring at her.

She was suddenly a little nervous. She couldn’t really talk. She hoped they weren't expecting too much. She was actually feeling a little shy about this. She normally didn’t get shy about things, but, apparently, this was something that triggered the feeling.

“Well, come on! Give it a try!” Maggie prompted.

Shadow shot them a nervous glance and shrunk down a bit.

Well, here I go… I guess I can try my name.

She pointed at herself and did her best.

She started out with a hiss. That was kind of like an ‘Sh’ sound. Moving on to the ‘Ah’, she really didn’t have anything matching it in her vocal repertoire. She settled for her screech sound. It was… kinda close?

Well, that was… sort of… the first half. How should she do the ‘dow’ part…

She huffed out a breath to end it.

“Hssssss EEEEEE oouhf.”

Yea, that wasn’t even close.

The three kids burst out laughing.

Shadow’s eyes narrowed and she gave them an annoyed hiss.

Ara stopped, looking a little nervous, but the other two just redoubled their manic giggling.

It’s not funny! I told you I couldn’t do it! Don’t laugh at me!

Shadow stalked off. She would definitely be red in the cheeks if she was human.

“No! Heh… No don’t leave! Come back!” Maggie gasped out while she fought to contain her laughter.

“You did good! It was a good try! Please don’ be mad!”

Fine…

Shadow huffed out a sigh and turned around to head back to the group.

“So… what sounds can ya make? Can ya just show em’ to us?” Maggie asked, a little more in control of herself at this point.

That, Shadow could do.

She placed herself in front of the kids and then pointed herself off to the side, facing herself at some imaginary combatant. She got into her most aggressive looking fighting pose, her muscles tense, tail lashing, and gave her best hiss at the fictional foe.

"Hsssssssssss!"

She relaxed her stance and grinned at the kids.

Maggie was giving her a pair of thumbs up and Roy clapped.

Ara was just staring at her with wide eyes.

“That’s… that’s pretty scary…” She whispered.

Oh. Well, it was supposed to be scary but she hadn’t meant to scare Ara. The girl seemed a little more skittish than the others.

“Don’t worry Ara, Shadow ain’t gonna do nothin’, if she were like a normal shady she’da tore us up way back!” Rob attempted to reassure the girl. Shadow wasn’t sure how well it worked, as Ara just gave him a weird look.

She relaxed her grin a little and padded over to Ara to reassure her that she wasn’t scary, nuzzling her until she started smiling again.

Shadow broke off from Ara and moved to the front of the group again, waving to get their attention, and then put herself in a sad stance, looking down, and started to keen. The sound was pretty close to a screech, but higher pitched and somehow less sharp. It was quieter than her screech.

“Aww, It’s like she’s cryin’. Sounds kinda like a whining dog.” Maggie said, looking a little sad.

Shadow stopped and nodded to her. That was definitely her sad sound.

She started grinning again. Now was time for her most impressive sound!

She put herself back into an aggressive stance again, menacing a pile of sawdust, and took a deep breath before… well, perhaps a full screech wasn’t the best idea, even if they were in here and pretty far away from the other buildings... Something a little less than full volume would—

She noticed the footsteps. They could just barely be heard through the wall.

She froze, looking at the kids. They didn’t seem to have noticed anything. She started pointing up toward where the door was through the ceiling and making shushing motions.

That was just in time for them all to hear the door slam open, followed shortly by a bellow.

“What in the hells is goin’ on in here!?”

Perhaps they weren’t as out of the way as they’d thought.